Friday, 3 April 2015

Draught Strong Ale in the 1950’s

I still can’t quite face going through all the Milds. There are so many of them and there aren’t really subtypes. Not unless I really force things. So I’m dodging the problem and looking at Strong Ales instead.

It’s another very London-heavy set. But at least that tells me what precisely most of these beers were: Burton. A couple are even specifically called KK, the usual brewhouse name for Burton in the capital. One exception is the Barclay Perkins beers with a gravity of 1077.2. That’s KKKK, a beer only sold in the winter. That was called Old Burton.

These were some of the strongest beers regularly available on draught. Which isn’t that impressive, what with them averaging a bit under 5% ABV. But British beer, especially on draught, was generally pretty weak after WW II. In fact, it’s only in the last decade or two that more strong draught beers have appeared. It’s weird to think that beers like Old Peculiar, Fuller’s ESB and Rutland County were for a long time the strongest around.

The two different methods of colour notation make it difficult to do any averaging. What I can say is that they’re all dark brown, starting at the colour of Dark Mild and ending close to Stout.

Once again, attenuation is all over the place. As far as I can see, there is no real pattern.

Draught Strong Ale in the 1950's

Year

Brewer

Beer

Price
per pint (d)

Acidity

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Attenua-tion

colour

1954

Charrington

KK

19

0.08

1048.1

1010.7

4.86

77.75%

21R+40B

1953

Barclay Perkins

Strong Ale

37

1077.15

120

1954

Barclay Perkins

KK

21

0.06

1043

1011.1

4.14

74.19%

19+40

1953

Charrington

Strong Ale

19

1039.85

144

1954

Courage

XXX

20

0.08

1046.2

1013.8

4.20

70.13%

31R+40B

1955

Hancock

Five Five

1055

1953

Ind Coope

Strong Ale

19

1042.98

112

1953

Lacons

Strong Ale

21

1046.8

1953

Mann

Strong Ale

24

1050.21

168

1954

Mann

Dragon Ale

24

0.07

1051.2

1019.1

4.15

62.70%

25R+40B

1953

Meux

Strong Ale

20

1045.79

152

1954

Taylor Walker

KKK

21

0.05

1049.1

1017

4.15

65.38%

17R+40B

1953

Truman

Strong Ale

22

1045.59

1954

Truman

SA

22

0.05

1049.1

1009.3

5.19

81.06%

17+40

1954

Watney

KKKK

24

0.10

1055.2

1013.5

5.42

75.54%

23R+40B

1953

Wenlock

Strong Ale

20

1043.36

176

1953

Whitbread

Strong Ale

23

1052.06

104

1954

Whitbread

KKKK

23

0.06

1051.2

1011.9

5.11

76.76%

15R+40B

Average

22.3

0.07

1049.5

1013.3

4.65

72.94%

Sources:

Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives,
document number B/THB/C/252.

Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan
Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

“Cardiff Pubs and Breweries” by Brian Glover, 2005. pages
97-101

It’s interesting that the average price isn’t much more than for Keg Bitter. Take out Barclay Perkins much more expensive beer and it’s about exactly the same. While the average gravity of Strong Ales was much higher. Another example of keg’s poor value for money. Which is still the case.

I really can’t understand why people are happy to pay five quid for a murky pint of keg when you can get a top-class cask beer for half the price. More money than sense, as my mum used to say.

Not sure where we’ll be going next. I could chicken out on Mild again and opt for bottled beers. Depends on my arsing situation.